Several days after making the purchase, a young black man named Michael Brown was murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

And it’s the most peculiar thing to ponder how Captain America might act were he a real human being instead of a fictional character, dropped into the middle of Ferguson on a night hot with friction between residents justifiably angry over the killing of one of their own, and a militarized police force far too willing to regard the citizens they’re supposed to “serve and protect” as enemy combatants.

Here's how you know we don't live in a comic-book world: Captain America isn't on the front lines in #Ferguson fighting back.

It’s easy enough to make the link between this young man and Captain America based on what he wears in the photo, but there’s more to this than mere appearance.

When I think about Captain America and Ferguson, Missouri, (or Palestine, or Iraq, or Syria, or Myanmar, or anywhere oppression rules) I ask myself, “Who would Captain America raise his shield to defend?” I also think about the unfulfilled promise of our nation, and how racism was written into its founding documents. I think about how Captain America isn’t an expression of America as it is, or even of the American myth of exceptionalism, but of an America that has only ever existed in the minds and hearts of those who have laid themselves bare in pursuit of liberty and justice for all, including some who, like Malcolm X, have paid the final price in doing so.

For the moment, Captain America lives in Ferguson, Missouri. He has no shield to raise, (unless you consider a bag of Red Hot Riplets a sufficient substitute) but he is doing what I think Captain America would do; defending the citizens of Ferguson, demanding justice of the oppressors.

* – I don’t know who to credit the two artistic renderings of Robert Cohen’s photo to. I simply ran across them on the ‘net and was unable to discover more about them. If you know where those images come from, please feel free to note any attributions in the comments and I will amend the post. Thanks!